


Rock

by saltylikecrait



Series: What Comes After [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Developing Friendships, F/M, First Kiss, Gift Giving, Jealousy, Jewelry, Lightsabers, Love Triangles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 11:02:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14932998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltylikecrait/pseuds/saltylikecrait
Summary: “I don’t know what it’s called, but you should hold on to it. Maybe give it to someone special.”





	Rock

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended to be a purely fluffy sorta post-TLJ fic, but it evolved into something else. I have a lot of fears for how Rey and Rose might interact together in IX due to the fact the writers have a terrible tendency to make women be hostile to each other when they are both competing for the same man's affections. I'm tired of seeing that on screen and I really don't want to see that in IX.

On her second day on Ahch-To, Rey found herself with little to do and with a lot of frustration building up inside her. Master Skywalker was nothing like she had imagined, quite the opposite actually, and getting him to talk to her for more than a few minutes was proving to be a feat. Still, she kept hoping that she would get him to warm up to her, to get him to be the Luke Skywalker that she had heard about in stories. Maybe she would have to wear him down a little, but Rey was patient and stubborn. She could play his game for a while.

But for now, she sweat out her frustration by practicing with the lightsaber.

The hum of the plasma blade vibrated through her hands. It was a new feeling, but it made her feel powerful to have the weapon of a Jedi in her grasp. Sometimes when she was little, she would use whatever long piece of scrap metal she could find a pretend she was a Jedi, swinging around her lightsaber with abandon. It was a child’s playtime dream but the real thing was not as fun as it sounded.

She swung the saber around in form she had taught herself with her quarterstaff, adjusting it to the single blade that did not require both her hands. It differed from a two-handed weapon, but Rey adjusted to it just fine.

A sudden squawk startled her and Rey accidentally tossed her arm backward, plunging the blue blade into the small rocky wall situated behind her. She panicked and shut off the lightsaber, watching as a bit of the rock was cut out and fell to the ground, rolling just a few inches away.

Turning to face the direction the sound was coming from, she spotted a porg staring at her with scared wide eyes. She breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the cut stone by her feet.

Upon first gaze, the rock was nothing special. It just looked like a large chunk of the gray stone that was common on the island. She could find it everywhere around her.

It was the underside of the stone that had her captivated.

Flipping it over to have a better look, Rey was in awe of the shape and color that was hidden underneath. Cut, the stone revealed a center of gray and green circular shapes that reminded Rey of a fruit that the Falcon had been loaded with for the trip. It was pretty, and she had never seen anything like it before, though she wondered if the stone would have gotten any portions for it if she had found it on Jakku. Rocks normally had no value on the junkyard world, they were everywhere and unremarkable. Sometimes though a scavenger would find a valuable stone while checking out the old Imperial ships and would leave Niima with a pouch full of portions to last them a while.

Even if it held no monetary value, Rey wanted to hold onto the stone.

The next time she encountered Skywalker, she showed him the stone, asking if he knew what it was called. She thought he might give her his usual cold shoulder treatment, but the stone drew a surprisingly different reaction from him.

“Oh wow,” he gasped as he turned the rock in his hands and looked at it. “I’ve never seen something like this before.” He handed it back to her. “I don’t know what it’s called, but hold on to it. Maybe give it to someone special.”

The thought of giving someone a gift had never occurred to her before. Rey never had anything she could willingly give away and never had anyone she wanted to give something to. She slid the stone in her pouch for safekeeping, keeping the thought tucked away for later.

* * *

The stone was largely forgotten until after the Resistance settled in the Outer Rim.

For the first time in her life, Rey had found contentment in her day to day routine. She was surrounded by people she cared about and even the looming threat of destruction could not keep that contentment down.

Finn and Poe had been the most active people in her life and when Rose was up and walking again, she became part of their group too. However, Rose radiated a feeling around Rey that made her uncomfortable, almost as if she channeled anger and jealousy directly at Rey. She had no idea why Rose seemed so hostile to her at times and she wondered if it had something to do with being a Force-user. Rey would gladly trade the role to be a normal mechanic any day.

When she found the stone again at the bottom of her bag one day, she looked it over and had it cut and polished. With what she had from the finished procedure, she could create two rectangular beads that were about the length of her thumb and strung leather cords through a hole she drilled in the top. The necklaces were simple, but she loved that simplicity, the green color of the beads, and the fact that she had made something like this herself.

Rose wore a necklace around her neck every day and Rey noticed this almost right away. She knew that it was part of a pair and the other half had been lost when Rose’s sister died in the evacuation. Rey wore one of the green necklaces every day, too, a way to remind her of everything she had lost and everything she had gained since she left Jakku.

The last couple of weeks had seen a noticeable change in Rose. She did not act as cold and angry as she had when they first met. Rey wondered if Rose had made a conscious effort to get along with her, knowing they would have to work together for the sake of the Resistance.

Rey had felt a change in her own attitude, too. A strange feeling ate up at her whenever she saw Finn and Rose interacting. She could not quite place the feeling or give it a name, but she thought whatever it was, it was silly. It wasn’t as if Finn was ignoring her in favor of Rose; he made sure the both of them were included in his day-to-day life.

Still, something had changed and Rey got the feeling that something might have happened between him and Rose when they had been off on Canto Bight together.

It wasn’t until Rey had been honest with herself and admitted that sometimes she wanted Finn all to herself that she gave that aching feeling a name: jealousy. She knew it made a monster of even the most kind and privileged of beings and made sure she would not let that feeling cause her to treat Rose like a threat to her happiness.

That was also when she got the feeling she might have discovered the origin of the coldness that Rose initially showed her.

“That’s pretty,” Rose told her one day when she finally noticed the necklace. It had slid out from under Rey’s vest as she was hunched over the engine of a strange-looking pod craft that the Resistance had picked up. They were cheap craft, but they were fast and had some fighter weapon capabilities.

She clutched the pendant in her hand. “Oh this? I made it. I have a match for it, too.”

That made Rose smile. “Are you going to give it to anyone?” When Rey looked at her questionably, she elaborated. “My necklace was a pair with my sister’s. People often give a match to someone they care a lot about. You should do that too, if you want, of course.”

The only person she thought was special enough to her to share that with is Finn and she was not sure if he was the jewelry type. Some of the Resistance men like to wear accessories, but Rey had found that Finn only wore his standard pants, shirt, and shoes with the old flight jacket that Poe had given him.

That, and she also had to draw up the courage to give it to him. Fighting dark Force-users was one thing, this was quite another. Rey was not sure that her heart could take the pain of rejection if he told her that he didn’t want it.

She also did not want to tell Rose this, fearing that it might fuel more anger and hurt feelings between them. They were already walking a tightrope in an effort to get along.

Jealousy, Rey decided, was petty, yet here it was, controlling her. In all honesty, she knew that ultimately the choice would be Finn’s, if he wanted either of them at all.

But maybe making her move - Poe had mentioned something like that to her; now she wondered if he had been trying to give her advice - might solve that issue quicker. She wondered if Rose would hate her if Finn decided that he wanted to be with her. And if Finn rejected Rey, would she in turn become hostile to Rose, blaming her for all of this?

The best thing she could do was to let it cycle through. And if Finn did not want her, well then, she’d have to learn to accept that and not take out her anger on either parties.

But she eventually offered the pendant to him, after he returned from a mission battered and bruised and she sighed with relief that he survived another day.

“I have something for you,” she told him with an embarrassed blush tinting her cheeks. “It’s not much, but I want you to have it.”

When he took the necklace into his hands and looked it over, he was all smiles. “Hey, you made that, right?” He looked at the partner around her neck. “We’ll match.”

That made Rey hopeful. “You’ll wear it?”

“I love it,” he told her. “I’ll wear it every day.” And to show her that he was serious, he undid the knot in the leather and pulled it around his neck, knotting it again to secure it.

With affection for Finn bubbling throughout her body, Rey had the courage now to do something else. She had wanted to do this for a while, but like giving him the necklace, she had not even dared herself to try.

“It looks good on you.” She smiled and placed her hand gently on his cheek, pulling him in slightly so that her lips could reach his. It was almost an instinctive reaction; she didn’t realize what she was doing until her lips drifted close to his.

When they pulled away from each other, Finn grabbed her hand and laced their fingers together, resting his forehead against hers. The warm gaze of his eyes told her that he had wanted to do the same thing for a long time and that this would not be the last time they kissed.

She would have to face Rose later and address that Finn had finally made a choice. Now that was what scared her the most and she wondered if she could ever scrape together a real friendship with Rose as long as Finn was in the picture.

But for now, she decided that she’d rather focus on the good thing she had with the only person that had ever returned for her.


End file.
